Dempster Highway

From Free net encyclopedia

The Dempster Highway also known as Yukon Highway 5 and Northwest Territories Highway 8 is a highway that connects the Klondike Highway in the Yukon Territory of Canada to Inuvik, Northwest Territories on the Mackenzie River delta. During the winter months, the highway extends another 194 km to Tuktoyaktuk, on the northern coast of Canada, using frozen portions of the Mackenzie River delta as an ice road. The highway crosses the Peel River and the Mackenzie Rivers using a combination of seasonal ferry service and ice bridges.

The highway begins about 40 km (25 miles) east of Dawson City, Yukon on the Klondike Highway and extends 736 km (457 miles) to Inuvik.

Much of the highway follows an old dog sled trail. The highway was completed in 1979. The highway is named after Royal Canadian Mounted Police Inspector William Dempster, who as a young Constable frequently ran the dog sled trail from Dawson City, Yukon to Fort Mcpherson.

All but the last 20km is gravel, taken from points along the route.

History

In 1958 the Canadian government made the historic decision to build a 671-kilometre (417-mile) road through the Arctic wilderness from Dawson City, Yukon, to Inuvik in the Northwest Territories. Oil and gas exploration was booming in the Mackenzie Delta and the town of Inuvik was under construction. The road was billed as the first-ever overland supply link to southern Canada, where business and political circles buzzed with talk of an oil pipeline that would run parallel to the road. The two would ultimately connect with another proposed pipeline along the Alaska Highway.

All eyes turned to the Yukon on Aug. 17th, 1959, when Ottawa announced that oil had been discovered in the territory’s Eagle Plain. Sometimes a government can move with amazing speed. Almost in the next breath, Ottawa gave major concessions to the oil industry in an attempt to stimulate more exploration in Eagle Plain. All that drilling equipment and infrastructure couldn’t get in—and all that oil and potential tax revenue couldn’t get out—without a highway across the Arctic Circle. The sounds of bulldozers filled the air as construction began at Dawson City in January of 1959. But high costs and bickering between the federal and Yukon governments kept progress to a snail’s pace until 1961 when it stopped altogether. Only 115 kilometres (72 miles) of roadbed was built before the project was abandoned.

Nothing happened until 1968, when the Americans discovered huge reserves of oil and gas at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska. A high-stakes poker game developed between Washington and Ottawa. Billions of dollars were at stake, and political fortunes hung in the balance on both sides of the border. The Canadian government was afraid that the United States would develop the massive oil field with no consultation, no consideration and no benefits to its next-door neighbour. It wanted to assert Canadian sovereignty over the arctic seabed off the Yukon’s north coast in the Beaufort Sea, and over the Arctic Islands which hadn’t been formally claimed by any nation.

Recent History

The Dempster Highway—Canada’s first all-weather road to cross the Arctic Circle—was officially opened on Aug. 18th, 1979, at Flat Creek, Yukon. It was touted as a two-lane, gravel-surfaced, all-weather highway that ran 671 kilometres (417 miles) from the Klondike Highway near Dawson City to Fort McPherson and Arctic Red River in the Northwest Territories. It also linked with the Mackenzie Highway at a point 67 km south of Inuvik. The Canadian Armed Forces 1 Combat Engineer Regiment from Chilliwack, B.C., built the two major bridges over the Ogilvie and Eagle Rivers. Ferries handled the traffic at Fort McPherson and Arctic Red River.

The highway didn’t look like your average road then, and it doesn’t now. That’s because it’s unique in highway design and construction. It sits on top of a gravel berm to insulate the permafrost in the soil underneath. The thickness of the gravel pad ranges from 1.2 metres up to 2.4 metres in some places (four feet to eight feet). Without the pad, the permafrost would melt and the road would sink into the ground.

Template:Canada-road-stubde:Dempster Highway fr:Autoroute Dempster sk:Dempster Highway